This is also one of the most awkward topics for me to discuss with T as well. Glad it went ok for you, I can feel the anxiety around it now just thinking about my experience of it.

I know therapists probably wouldn’t do their job unless they cared about their clients. But at the same time I have really grown to dislike the word ‘care’, it has all sorts of weird associations for me, most of which are unpleasant. Once I felt really close to T, and then he pulled away from me in a massive way. I thought, maybe he doesn’t know how close I feel to him? I told him I loved him. I got the ‘I care about you’ response. I didn’t mean I loved him in a romantic way but I guess that’s what people always seem to think with that word. Or because of the types of abuse we had, maybe he thinks everything is sex related with me. I have never seen him cry so I don’t know if that’s a measure of how much he cares or not.

The times I have felt closest to him are strange I suppose. Usually when we communicate outside of sessions, as then I don’t feel like I am just a client. Sometimes when he has given me a small thing, that makes me feel close. Once when he ended an email with ‘Love’, although I don’t know if that was an accident, I hope not. But if I was to bring it up in a session like hey I love you, I know he would just come back with ‘I care deeply about you and all my clients’ (even though pre pandemic he said he hugged other clients but not me....!) so that’s a awkward one to swallow and usually makes me feel empty. Got super emotional writing this out. Thanks for sharing your experience of it.